Video hosting services?

Google Video is going to cease hosting new videos, so I need a new service to compress and host videos for my classes. Unfortunately Wikipedia's comparison charts of video services doesn't list all the things I want to know about. Here's what I'm looking for; the first few are required characteristics, "preferred" are additional characteristics I really want, and "optional" are bonuses.

1. Unlimited file size (or at least 500MB), unlimited time (or at least 90 min)


2. Cross-platform compatible


3. No additional software required for viewing (things like Java, Flash are ok since most computers have them already)


4. Compresses videos as well as sharing them, so they're faster for students to download on slow internet connections


5. No bandwidth cap, or 1.5GB/week / 8GB/month minimum.


6. Free to me and viewers


7. No account required for viewing (preferred)


8. I can choose not to display my name/account with videos I post (so I can use the same account for personal use) (preferred)


9. I can choose to not allow students to find other videos that I posted (ditto the purpose) (preferred)


10. I can choose to unlist videos I post, so no one but my students with a direct link are likely to find them (for intellectual property reasons) (preferred)


11. Download of video available (preferred)


12. Organization of videos into "folders" so I can post a link to the folder and the student can access all videos for that class in one place, and not the videos for other classes (optional)


13. Tool to upload multiple videos simultaneously (optional)


14. Upload tool allows me to resume paused or interrupted uploads (optional)

Anything else I should be looking for? Who do you like that has these? Google Video had 1-9. YouTube already fails at #1. I started looking at Vimeo and RapidShare, but don't know much about them. Edit: RapidShare seems a bit sketchy, Vimeo has weekly bandwidth limits below what I need.

Naming the Sky

The second video in my series for my online course.

More on UC vs Christian schools

Whee, CNN Video now allows embedding!



(If the video has problems, try this link.)

The girl's statement that her school teaches the "theories" of both ID and evolution and therefore is less "narrow" is exactly the problem - ID is not a theory, it's a baseless conjecture without any evidence. A theory needs to be well-tested, with an overwhelming amount of physical evidence to support it, such that it is well-accepted by the scientific community. These students are clearly NOT being taught that crucial distinction, and therefore do NOT understand how science works.

Bizarre observations from normal videos

There's a couple videos making the rounds right now where a woman observes some natural phenomenon and makes really bizarre conclusions. Although these are posted by two different people, I believe they were originally made by the same person - the rainbow link is a reposting, the Moon one appears to be the original person if you glance at some of her other videos, but I don't see the rainbow among them.

The Rainbow DiHydrogen Monoxide Conspiracy



This was discussed by the Bad Astronomer, and I didn't have the desire to view it then, but will now. If anyone here really does need an explanation of this "freaky unnatural rainbow sprinkler, since light isn't naturally a rainbow," in short, whenever there's a fine mist (such as clouds, or spray from a waterfall, or from a sprinkler) in front of you, and a source of continuum light (usually the Sun) behind you, the light bounces around inside the mist droplets and comes back out as a rainbow. A similar effect can be seen with ice particles in clouds around the Moon at night - since it's ice, the way the light bounces is different so you'll see the ring around the Moon instead of in the opposite direction.

The statement "This cannot be natural, it didn't happen 20 years ago," is simply an indication that 20 years ago she was not as observant as she is now, and in fact if she had been listening in school 30 years ago, she might even know "what the hell is going on".

The Moon is Broken



What's happening to the Moon in this video is known as earthshine. The Moon appears bright because light from the Sun bounces off the Moon and into our eyes. If you were standing on that part of the Moon you'd see a bright Sun in the sky. The other side appears dark usually b/c no light is bouncing off of it. Sometimes we can actually see the "dark" side due to reflected light from the Earth - light from the Sun bounces off the Earth, then off the Moon and into our eyes. If you were standing on the Moon there you'd see a bright Earth in the sky, much like the Full Moon looks bright to us here.

As for her last comment in the video ("The Moon seems awfully low for this time of year"), it's not actually the time of year that matters, it's the phase of the Moon. The crescent Moon is never far from the Sun in the sky, so it makes perfect sense for the waxing crescent Moon to set right after sunset.

While this woman's conclusions are entirely bizarre, I have to applaud her observational skills, and her desire to learn what caused these various effects. There are many more people out there with even more bizarre ideas in their heads, but they never bother to look up or around themselves, and thus have no hope of ever leaving their strange little worlds. This woman at least has a chance.

More poor science in the news

My goodness, is this CNN video misleading. The person who wrote this video is trying to make the point that older cars get better gas mileage than newer cars, when in fact the reality is that he's just supporting the known fact that smaller cars get better gas mileage than bigger cars. In both cases the person interviewed traded down in car size when they went to the older car - one guy went from an SUV to a smaller pickup truck, the other from a pickup truck to a sedan. Whoever wrote this article needs to go back to college and take a science course where they teaching about controlling the variables.

Evolution Demo

This video demonstrating a simple version of natural selection and evolution is 10 minutes long.



Unfortunately I don't think this video is likely to convince creationists of the veracity of evolution - they will just complain that the code isn't right or something, but perhaps it will make a difference with the fence-sitters.

Vector Physics - Japanese TV style

For your entertainment, on the page I found it, it said "Vector physics in real life. From 'Trivia no Izumi' (Fountain of Trivia), the same Japanese show that figured out how heavy a fish Dora cat can carry."

For your edification, what's happening is the truck is driving forward (left) at 100km/hr, while the ball is being shot backwards (right) at (-)100km/hr relative to the truck. Note in particular the strobe effect photos of the ball shot from a stationary truck at 1:40, and the ball shot from the moving truck at 3:50. Also note that while the ball falls it drifts forward slightly, this could be due either to a mismatch in velocities or due to drafting (wind following the motion of the truck), and after it impacts the ground it bounces forward significantly, probably due to spin ("English") on the ball or possibly due to drafting (since the video is sped back up we can't tell how fast it's moving forward compared to while it was falling).

Link c/o hitchhiker.

Oh, Arizona

Former AZ governor "comes out" that he believes a famous "sighting" in in 1997 called the Phoenix Lights was an alien spacecraft, and says the burden of proof otherwise is on the DOD. *rolls eyes*